Workshop on Healthy Living with HIV 2021
Welcome
To help the community of future clinical leaders, who embrace an updated and relevant paradigm for the optimal care of people living with HIV. Focused not only on viral suppression but also on guaranteeing them optimal health throughout their lifetime. Striving to develop a clinical setting where treatment decisions consider all their implications for long term health.
Over the last two decades, HIV has transformed from a fatal disease into a chronic condition where the great majority of individuals living with HIV can look forward to a full and active life. This is due to an increased understanding of the disease and its management, but above all, to the unprecedented improvement in antiretroviral drugs.
Not surprisingly, the current management of individuals living with HIV continues to be overwhelmingly influenced by the fear of AIDS, suffering, and death, with treatment success measured by the long-term avoidance of these conditions. However, in the context of the armamentarium now available to clinicians and individuals living with HIV, much higher goals are attainable. Clinicians should now be focused not only on avoiding AIDS but also on guaranteeing individuals living with HIV a full long life with minimum adverse events or co-morbidities. Planning should not be limited to care over the next 5 – 10 years, but for many decades to come, with the expectation of a healthy and productive older age. This requires clinicians to adapt a proactive approach to preventing long-term morbidities and incorporate this into their decision-making process when making treatment choices.